Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots. -Frank A. Clark
Searching for a draft and its revision, I realized that I had a very limited collection. Possibly the reason for my continual writer's block, I tend to revise as I write. I will type out a sentence, and continually alter the phrasing and word order until it looks and sounds satisfactory. There have been few opportunities in which I was forced to return to a previous draft and improve it further. This exercise challenged me to reflect on my work in a way that I have not before and to respond to constructive criticism in a productive and meaningful manner. As Clark explains in the quote above, criticism should be evaluated by the receiver. In this blog revision, I attempted to retain my own style and message while understanding and implementing advice from my professor.
The Individual: An Identity Problem Recently I wrote a history paper for my European Civilizations class. The professor’s comments on my rough draft were disheartening at best, and the one I could not comprehend was the following: “In a society built on groups, everyone was subordinate to someone else, and all were subordinate to the group. You simply must get away from your presentist obsession with the individual.” At the time, I was completely baffled as to how this critique related to my paper. A “presentist obsession with the individual”?
In “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition”, Fan Shen discusses how he had to create an alternate identity, separate from his Chinese self, in order to navigate the conventions of English writing. Shen describes how he had to gain an understanding of “I” as an individual rather than “I” as a subordinate member to the collective whole. It was only after reading Shen’s article that I began to understand my history professor’s comment. I had interpreted the texts through an individualized lens, a perspective so deeply engrained in me by the society in which I live. Like Shen, I had to assume a new perspective, that of the individual as subordinate to the collective whole, in order to communicate my thoughts accurately and clearly in my history paper . Fan Shen’s experience as an ESL writer and my experience taking on a different identity perspective in historical writing raise some difficult questions. As writing center tutors, when is it appropriate to help the writer create a new identity? And how are we to do this? I do not think there are concrete answers to these questions. However, the more aware we become of differences in styles of writing and their cultural, linguistic, or ideological origins, the better equipped we can become as writing tutors to help fellow writers express themselves within the conventions of English writing with clarity and strength. I think the ideal model in working with ESL students is that of the accomodationist. In “Reading an ESL Writer’s Text”, Paul Kei Matsuda and Michelle Cox explain that the “accomodationist reader’s goal is to help the writer learn new discourse patterns without completely losing the old, so that the writer can maintain their…linguistic and cultural identities” (Matsuda, 42). The original identity is not erased or faded; rather, new identities are formed to fit different writing environments. Furthermore, new identities can act as gateways to new understandings of the world. In this context, both identities are acknowledged as vital parts of the whole person. Fan Shen exemplifies the benefits of developing a new identity: "I welcome the change, for it has added a new dimension to me and to my view of the world" (Shen, 465). Yet, his original identity is maintained with the understanding that each self has its appropriate context and strengths. As I have yet to work with an ESL student in practice, it is difficult to predict exactly how the accomodationist approach will play out in an actual session. However, I do think that Matsuda and Cox’s emphasis that tutors should “suspend judgments, focus on meaning, and be aware of their own preferences and biases” is very insightful (Mastuza 46). As difficult as it is, I have to recognize and in a sense detach myself from my own identity in order to become more open and understanding of others' identities as they are expressed through writing. |
The Individual: An Identity Problem, Revised Recently I wrote a history paper for my European Civilizations class. The professor’s comments on my rough draft were disheartening at best, and the one I could not comprehend was the following: “In a society built on groups, everyone was subordinate to someone else, and all were subordinate to the group. You simply must get away from your presentist obsession with the individual.” At the time, I was completely baffled as to how this critique related to my paper. A “presentist obsession with the individual”?
In “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition”, Fan Shen discusses how he had to create an alternate identity, separate from his Chinese self, in order to navigate the conventions of English writing. Shen describes how he had to gain an understanding of “I” as an individual rather than “I” as a subordinate member to the collective whole. It was only after reading Shen’s article that I began to understand my history professor’s comment. I had interpreted the texts through an individualized lens, a perspective so deeply engrained in me by the society in which I live. Like Shen, I had to assume a new perspective, that of the individual as subordinate to the collective whole, in order to communicate my thoughts accurately and clearly in my history paper. Fan Shen’s experience as an ESL writer and my experience taking on a different identity perspective in historical writing raise some difficult questions. As writing center tutors, when is it appropriate to help the writer create a new identity? And how are we to do this? I do not think there are concrete answers to these questions. However, the more aware we become of differences in styles of writing and their cultural, linguistic, or ideological origins, the better equipped we can become as writing tutors to help fellow writers express themselves within the conventions of English writing with clarity and strength. I think the ideal model in working with ESL students is that of the accomodationist. In “Reading an ESL Writer’s Text”, Paul Kei Matsuda and Michelle Cox explain that the “accomodationist reader’s goal is to help the writer learn new discourse patterns without completely losing the old, so that the writer can maintain their…linguistic and cultural identities” (Matsuda, 42). The original identity is not erased or faded; rather, new identities are formed to fit different writing environments. Furthermore, new identities can act as gateways to new understandings of the world. In this context, both identities are acknowledged as vital parts of the whole person. Fan Shen exemplifies the benefits of developing a new identity: "I welcome the change, for it has added a new dimension to me and to my view of the world" (Shen, 465). Yet, his original identity is maintained with the understanding that each self has its appropriate context and strengths. Matsuda’s accommodationist approach sounds promising in theory, but how is it utilized in practice? In the writing center, I had one session that truly embodied the conflict to which the accomodationist attempts to respond. Maria’s paper had many dangling adjectives, contextualized as if they were nouns. For example, she referred to people as “the brave” and “the timid”. Right away, I paused and asked if she was a native Spanish speaker. Having studied Spanish since the second grade, I recognized this structure right away. An English speaker might consider these phrasings to be complete misunderstandings of syntactic structures, an inappropriate use of grammar. I, however, could understand the underlying cultural identity that was represented in what could be seen as a quick grammatical fix. In Spanish, as in al languages I am sure, the syntactic arrangement of words functions not only on a grammatical level; it has so many cultural implications. In Spanish, “the timid”, or “el tímido” does not just mean “a timid person”. Rather, it suggests that the person’s identity is intrinsically inseparable from that trait. That person is defined by that trait. My ability to understand Maria’s cultural identity was a unique experience as a writing center tutor. I am often blind to any cultural distinctions that might be embedded in the papers of my peers. Because I was aware of and even shared in Maria’s dual identity as a speaker of both Spanish and English, I could take on the role of the accomodationist. I explained the distinction between the languages, laying out the grammatical structure and connotation appropriate for each linguistic environment. Like Graff’s accomodationist, I attempted to bring awareness to Maria’s dual identity, contextualizing each in its own appropriate space. Just as Shen was able to alternate between his two identities with an understanding of how each affected his writing, hopefully Maria too will be able to embrace her dual identity as both an English and Spanish speaker. |
Feedback from the ProfessorColleen,
Thanks for this thoughtful and clearly written response to Shen Matsuda and Cox. Have you worked with any ESOL writers since writing this? Right now the strongest part of your blog is the engagement with the reading. If you want to revise this one or build it into a final project, I encourage you to incorporate either one of your own tutoring sessions or one you observe to think through the thorny question of how best to be an accomodationist tutor. What does the practice look like? I also wanted to follow up about your 011 assignment. Because we haven’t been able to place you with a class, I wonder if we can assign you to an extra hour/week in the center for the next few weeks. We get especially busy at midterms and the end of the term, so this would be a good use of your time. Thanks, Prof. D |
Reflection When I first wrote this blog post, I had not yet worked with an ESL student, so my application to a tutoring session was completely missing. Going into my tutoring session with Mairead, I had Maria’s session in mind as the intended focus of application, but I was not sure how I would make a concrete connection with the other themes of the post. I expressed these concerns to Mairead, and she explained her perspective, as someone who only spoke English. She said she was not aware of the cultural implications of the linguistic observation I made and that it created an interesting point of view. She asked me more about the distinction, which caused me to focus more intently on understanding of identity. I really appreciated Mairead’s advice. She recommended that I omit the final paragraph, which I too found unnecessary with the addition of the discussion of Maria’s tutoring session.
The tutoring session was much less formal than many of the session that I have with students. Because Mairead and I are both so familiar with the environment of being tutored, I think that we were able to overlook any awkwardness in the authority dynamic between peer tutor and peer tutor. We both understood that we were peers, two perspectives analyzing and looking for deeper understanding in a piece of writing. This tutoring session motivates me to break down the barrier created by the tutor-tutee relationship and create a dynamic closer to that of mutual contributors |